Quebec Niqab
A woman in a niqab protests outside of Montreal City Hall in opposition to Bill 94 on April 17, 2010. (Allen McInnis/The Montreal Gazette)

MONTREAL — Calling it a North American first, the Quebec government passed legislation Wednesday forbidding anyone from receiving or giving a public service with their face covered — and even while riding the bus.

The opposition said the law doesn’t go far enough, while members of the province’s Islamic community said it targets Muslim women and violates their fundamental right to express their religion as they see fit.

“This has been a debate that’s been tearing Quebec apart for the past few years,” Premier Philippe Couillard told reporters. “We need to hail this exercise. We need to remind people we are the only jurisdiction in North America to have legislated on this issue.”

Bill 62 is the Liberal government’s attempt to enshrine into law what is considered to be a fundamental Quebec value that the state should not promote religion of any kind.

Due to the historical omnipresence of the Roman Catholic Church in the lives of Quebecers, some activists in the province see the movement for secularism — including laws banning religious expression in public institutions — as the natural evolution of modern Quebec.

The Liberals’ bill is not as strict as the values charter tabled by the Parti Quebecois but which did not become law because the Liberals swept the sovereigntist party from power in 2014.

Bill 62 has two basic components: it bans the wearing of face coverings for people giving or receiving a service from the state and it offers a framework outlining how authorities should grant accommodation requests based on religious beliefs.

Couillard said he expects some people to challenge the law, but he defended the legislation as necessary for reasons related to communication, identification and security.

“The principle to which I think a vast majority of Canadians by the way, not only Quebecers, would agree upon is that public services should be given and received with an open face,” he said.

“I speak to you, you speak to me. I see your face. You see mine. As simple as that.”

In Ottawa, the Bloc Quebecois asked Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in the Commons whether he could categorically state his government would not challenge the law.

Trudeau responded by saying he would “continue to work to make sure Canadians are protected by the charter (federal Charter of Rights and Freedoms) while at the same time respecting the choices made by various parliamentarians at different levels.”

“But here, at the federal level, we defend the rights of all Canadians.”

Trudeau later tweeted a link to a speech he gave in 2015 condemning face-covering bans, adding that his position hasn’t changed.

“It is a cruel joke to claim you are liberating people from oppression by dictating in law what they can and cannot wear,” he said in the speech.

How the new law will be enforced is still unclear, particularly for bus drivers who fear becoming the fashion police.

Quebec Justice Minister Stephanie Vallee, who tabled the bill, said guidelines on how the law would be enforced would be phased in by next June 30, after consultations.

She told reporters the law also affects women who choose to use public transit while wearing Islamic face coverings, such as the niqab or burka.

“The obligation to uncover your face is for duration of the public service rendered,” she said. “Not just for the veiled woman, but think also of hoods or tinted glasses.”

Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre said he remains uncomfortable with the legislation, especially as it applies to the city’s public transit.

“What does it mean? We have niqab police as bus drivers?” Coderre asked. “Will we refuse to provide them (women wearing face coverings) services if they are freezing with their children?”

A spokesman for the union representing Montreal bus drivers, ticket takers and subway employees says it isn’t interested in enforcing the law.

“Bus drivers don’t want to have the responsibility of applying Bill 62 at this time,” Ronald Boisrond of the Canadian Union of Public Employees said in an interview.

Andre Lamoureux, political scientist and spokesman for a Quebec-based movement for secularism, said the niqab or burka “has no place — not even on the bus.”

His group was one of many who testified during the legislative hearings into Bill 62.

“(The niqab) is not a religious sign,” Lamoureux said. “It’s a political symbol of the enslavement and de-empowerment of women that is supported by the most repressive regimes on the planet.”

Eve Torres, a spokeswoman for the National Council of Canadian Muslims, said the face veil itself is not the issue.

“Whether it pleases Mr. Lamoureux or me — that’s not the question,” she said. “The Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms allows women to express their way of interpreting their religion.

“Whether I’m OK with it or not is not the point.”

Lamoureux said the majority of Quebecers are against the niqab and the burka due to historical considerations.

“Before the 1960s there was terrible social pressure on women, on couples,” he said. “The church was against abortion, controlled women’s bodies. When women went to the confessional, the priest would demand they get pregnant. The church was everywhere, in the schools. Even my hockey coach was a Jesuit.”

He said Quebecers don’t care if people practise their religion in private, but they are sensitive to signs that religiosity is re-entering public institutions.

Torres said the government has switched roles with the church.

“The government has passed a law forcing women to uncover a part of their body against their will,” she said.

“I am aware of the past, but the past also tells us that women have come a long way but there is still a lot of work to do. This law does not add anything to the advancement of women in society.”

Another spokesman with the National Council of Canadian Muslims said the organization is “looking at its options” with regards to a possible court challenge.

Fo Niemi of the Center for Research-Action on Race Relations said the law could eventually be challenged in front of the United Nations.

“It is foreseeable...the law will end up before the UN because it can be deemed to be a violation of certain rights protected by the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women,” Niemi said.

Vallee said she believes her bill passes the legal test.

“In every piece of legislation, there’s a risk of it being contested by those who don’t agree with it,” Vallee said. “We consider that this bill is solid, it’s strong, it’s a bill that’s respectful of civil rights.”

I don't say that just to spite TC (although that is a fringe benefit). Why? Because ultimately it's about control of the public space. Whose rules are to apply?

The usual Christian solution is mutual toleration, but the Moslems have ruled that out. To them, Christians are a form of pollution, an offense to Allah, and killing us is a form of worship.

Just criticizing the Moslem faith, with its acceptance of slavery and grotesque tortures as punishment for crimes strikes Christian ears as everything the West has been trying to purge.

TC might say he's not a Christian, which is fine except he lives (probably in every way except his sexual tastes) like a Christian. I bet that in every significant case when given a choice to do things the Moslem way or the Christian way, he chooses the Christian way. In that sense, we are almost all Christians.

Have you ever been in a Moslem country? They treat the public space abominably. So do Liberals.

Quebeckers have every right to say to the newcomers: Hey, none of that here! Just as they have the right to tell Justin to "Va te faire foutre!"

Y Why? Because ultimately it's about control of the public space. Whose rules are to apply?

Logic fail. Who controls public space? What does that have to do with someone who may want to wear a face covering?

Winter is cold. Oh well, suffer?

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The usual Christian solution is mutual toleration, but the Moslems have ruled that out. To them, Christians are a form of pollution, an offense to Allah, and killing us is a form of worship.

Blatant garbage and you know it.

Christian solution? Why any religious solution is needed?

Say now....who killed the 6 muslims in quebec?

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Just criticizing the Moslem faith, with its acceptance of slavery and grotesque tortures as punishment for crimes strikes Christian ears as everything the West has been trying to purge.

Ah yes...use the few to castigate the many. Well done. Shallow thinking of course from you but when you havent got anything else, shallow it is.

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TC might say he's not a Christian, which is fine except he lives (probably in every way except his sexual tastes) like a Christian. I bet that in every significant case when given a choice to do things the Moslem way or the Christian way, he chooses the Christian way. In that sense, we are almost all Christians.

Not a Christian. Never was. Another bet lost by you.

Dont think in Christian/Muslim/Hebrew/buddhist terms for anything. Dont believe in god and havent since I was 10 yrs old.

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Have you ever been in a Moslem country? They treat the public space abominably. So do Liberals.

....says the small thinker who never gets out of his small time town.

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Quebeckers have every right to say to the newcomers: Hey, none of that here! Just as they have the right to tell Justin to "Va te faire foutre!"

You don't understand what 'the commons' are? The public space? I don't understand, just on the basis of common law, why we should welcome people who wear masks into our midst? Do masked people find it easier to ... for example ... lie? Or do other nefarious things? Why should Canadians hold Moslems in any higher regard than they hold anyone else?

It's relevant because Moslems don't play well with the other kids. They don't share. They go along until they see a chance, and then all of sudden you have no-go zones in the middle of your city. They start to treat Christian women like whores, and all of that, based on the fact that they aren't wearing niqabs. But you know all of this.

It isn't as if all this niqab stuff is anything more than the way Moslems bring their values into use in the public space. In their country, anyone who's got anything hides everything about them when they go outside. Anonymity is the thing. It isn't just women's faces -- men wear garments over their regular garments even in stifling heat just so they can't be picked out of a crowd. It's like, in Moslem societies, everybody goes out looking for a crime to commit.

It doesn't help things to ignore the truth.

Christians may fall short, but it is our side -- including a hideous post-modern nihilist like yourself, who live in the Christian pattern while maintaining a cynical pose for fashion's sake -- it is our side that has mutual tolerance at least as an ideal.

Moslems think that's a lot of nonsense, and that they're right, and everyone else's view are just pollution that offends Allah and deserves death or slavery. Moslems don't always live up to their ideals, either, so when they lapse, we stay alive, at least until the time is right.

I can't imagine why anyone would want immigrants like that when there's perfectly good Europeans who'd love to settle in Canada.

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What I find fascinating is that it is your contention that Quebeckers don't have the right to specify how their public space is to be used. Presumably, neither do we English-speaking Canadians. Why not? And who does?

I am thoroughly familiar with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and I don't see that mentioned. Are you lying again? How could you ever get that dumb that you accept this nonsense?

You don't understand what 'the commons' are? The public space? I don't understand, just on the basis of common law, why we should welcome people who wear masks into our midst? Do masked people find it easier to ... for example ... lie? Or do other nefarious things? Why should Canadians hold Moslems in any higher regard than they hold anyone else?

For one they dont.

But hey, you christian retards cant think things through anyhow, just diddle kids and smile. Isnt that what this is? Now now....christian churchgoers have diddled kids so they all do it.

Works for you right? Has to since one muslim does bad things, you want to dispose of all.

The public space is just that. Public. What one wears is no one business short of obscene or being totally naked.

Hard to understand is it?

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It's relevant because Moslems don't play well with the other kids. They don't share. They go along until they see a chance, and then all of sudden you have no-go zones in the middle of your city. They start to treat Christian women like whores, and all of that, based on the fact that they aren't wearing niqabs. But you know all of this.

Was it only a week or two ago when Abdulahi Hasan Sharif managed to get himself charged with a bunch of attempted murders, and such ... you may recall, while having an ISIS flag on the as he was driving up over the curb to run down the cop, and then jumped out and stabbed him? And some others, later?

Are saying it was the cop's fault for not showing sufficient respect, or something ...?

Nobody is talking about ejecting anybody from the country, so you can stop foaming.

The question is: What is a reasonable accommodation and what is being pushed around? Should we change family law, for instance, to accommodate polygamy and honor killings? And if Moslems get to wear masks, how about the rest of us? If we see a Moslem woman on the street, unescorted, should we set on her like she's a whore as is common in some of the most Moslem countries? Just so she'll feel at home?

There are so many questions.

But the biggest question of all ... TC is going to tell us why Quebeckers have no right to make rules about what is acceptable behaviour in the public square in Quebec.

And presumably we English-speaking Canadians have no such right either since we always have less than Quebec ...

I dunno, he claims to be smart, but I don't think he can back that one up.

No it isn't. It's as if we were being compelled to accept male immigrants who wear no pants and who insist that their religion required them to dangle free ... no matter how unsightly. And who have a pattern of bullying other men into taking their pants off too.

Compared to what Saudi Arabia might do to you for having a sip of scotch, it's nothing.

When Dalton McGuinty thought he would win some favour with Moslems by offering to make Sharia law a legal option in Ontario, guess who got him to stop? A chorus of female Moslem voices rose up, all saying, "No no no no, a thousand times no ..."

So the panderer withdrew the suggestion. Maybe you should do the same.

Who after all, wants to wear a niqab? It's the kind of ritual punishment -- for being a female -- that is common in the rape cultures that Islam supports.

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But back to that claim that Quebeckers have no right to make such requirements in the market square? When did they lose that?

Compared to what Saudi Arabia might do to you for having a sip of scotch, it's nothing.

Irrelevant .

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When Dalton McGuinty thought he would win some favour with Moslems by offering to make Sharia law a legal option in Ontario, guess who got him to stop? A chorus of female Moslem voices rose up, all saying, "No no no no, a thousand times no ..."

Relevance Please?

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So the panderer withdrew the suggestion. Maybe you should do the same.

I suppose if I were pandering instead of being a bigot I may...but Im not so i cant.

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Who after all, wants to wear a niqab? It's the kind of ritual punishment -- for being a female -- that is common in the rape cultures that Islam supports.

Lots of women do, lots dont.

Some by choice, some not. Who decides? Certainly not the state.

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But back to that claim that Quebeckers have no right to make such requirements in the market square? When did they lose that?

When did they ever have/get that right.

Look, here is how this will go down.

Someone will contest this, it will go to the Supreme Court and get overturned as unconstitutional and then you will come on here and whine like always when your favourite subject gets shown to be illegal and stupid.

When Dalton McGuinty thought he would win some favour with Moslems by offering to make Sharia law a legal option in Ontario, guess who got him to stop? A chorus of female Moslem voices rose up, all saying, "No no no no, a thousand times no ..."

TC wrote:

Relevance Please?

Bugs wrote:

So the panderer withdrew the suggestion. Maybe you should do the same.

TC wrote:

I suppose if I were pandering instead of being a bigot I may...but Im not so i cant.

Thank you so much for admitting that. I hope that takes a load off your conscience. You should know there's help, and that you no longer have to suffer alone. It's like "coming out", and admitting your bigotry is an important first step.

Look at it this way -- only 11 more steps to go, and you'll no longer be a bigot!

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Bugs wrote:

Who after all, wants to wear a niqab? It's the kind of ritual punishment -- for being a female -- that is common in the rape cultures that Islam supports.

TC wrote:

Lots of women do, lots dont.

Some by choice, some not. Who decides? Certainly not the state.

Perfect, and presumably the bank manager doesn't have to give a loan to somebody who's wearing a niqab. That way, everybody has a choice.

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Bugs wrote:

But back to that claim that Quebeckers have no right to make such requirements in the market square? When did they lose that?

TC wrote:

When did they ever have/get that right.

So it was just an excess of rhetoric!

They 'got their language rights from the Proclamation Act of 1763 and the right to practice the Catholic religion, etc. etc. and it has been supported and expanded in every constitutional change since. It goes back from there to English common law about municipalities.

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